Photo Courtesy/Historic Star Theater The Historic Star Theater in Berkeley Springs will play host Sunday, June 14, to a live taping of the Tangle News podcast “Suspensions of the Rules!” where guests will discuss the politics of AI and its societal effects.

CHARLESTON – Berkeley Springs will play host Sunday to a panel discussion to look at the growing use of artificial intelligence – AI – along with the data centers powering the revolution, and the politics that is growing contentious not just in West Virginia, but nationwide.

Tangle News – a national news outlet that looks at politics and summarizes the various arguments from right, left, and center – is having a live-taping of its podcast, called “Suspensions of the Rules!” at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 14, at the Historic Star Theater in Berkeley Springs.

The podcast discussion will focus on the politics of AI and how the technology is influencing society. Isaac Saul, the founder of Tangle News, will moderate the panel Sunday. In an interview Monday, Saul said he agreed to bring his podcast to Berkeley Springs at the invitation of listeners Paul and Trey Johanson, the owners of the Star Theater.

“We’ve been doing some of these live events in a lot of the larger metro areas where this stuff typically happens,” Saul said. “It feels really important to make sure that for our brand and our audience and the people we’re talking to, that we branch out and we’re not just doing a rotation of all the biggest cities in America, that we get out to some different parts of the country.”

Saul, himself a native of Western Pennsylvania, said he also chose West Virginia to explore how AI might affect regions, such as West Virginia. The panel will explore the deeper economic, social, and cultural impacts AI might have on rural communities, such as its effect on social cohesion and the local job market.

“We’ve seen what really big shifts like deindustrialization can do to regions like this, and I think there’s a chance that artificial intelligence has a similar kind of impact,” Saul said. “What does it do to social cohesion if there are fewer people working at cashier checkout lines? What does it do if high school kids who live in rural West Virginia are making friends with artificial intelligence robots instead of friends after school hanging out

“It’s deeper than just like the economic questions, and we’re starting to see some of the impacts now and the backlash to it as well,” Saul continued. “So, I think all that stuff is really fascinating to me.”

The live podcast taping will feature Andy Mills, co-creator of The New York Time’s “The Daily” podcast and the podcast series “The Last Invention” about AI; Kat Rosenfield, an author and cultural commentator who writes columns for The Free Press; and Kmele Foster, co-host of The Fifth Column and political commentator who can be seen on “CNN NewsNight” with host Abby Phillip.

Speaking Monday, Foster said he is an active user of large language model (LLM) programs, such as Google Notebook LM, which help him with research and writing. Foster said he remains both positive and skeptical about the benefits of AI. But Foster said AI has become a catch-all for a variety of concerns, which could result in over-regulation of these platforms.

“The thing that I’m most concerned about in the political realm at the moment is the fact that there seems to be a kind of consensus belief that whether you’re apocalyptic or utopian in your convictions about AI, that AI is everything and all-important, and as a result, it kind of justifies us doing pretty extraordinary things from a policy standpoint.”

Saul said he thinks much of the disruption has already occurred, such as in areas of coding. While predictions of AI replacing whole industries has yet to occur despite the quick adoption of AI platforms by companies, non-profits, and governments.

“I’m sort of more bearish … I personally think we’re a little bit further down the timeline … and we might be overestimating what it’s going to be like in 10 years,” Saul said. “It hasn’t produced the kind of complete overhaul of all these different industries that it was allegedly or reportedly going to disrupt so thoroughly.”

“Will AI steal all of our jobs? Well, it will have to stop hallucinating and making up stuff first,” Foster said. “That’s probably going to be a limiting factor on its ability to steal all of our jobs.”

In West Virginia, much of the concern around AI involves the growth of data centers. House Bill 2014 passed by the Legislature last year created data center and microgrid districts, a new tangible personal property tax formula for those projects, and exempted the districts from certain local zoning ordinances and other regulations.

According to DataCenterMap.com, there are nine data centers either active in West Virginia or in progress. New projects, such as the Monarch Compute Campus in Mason County, the Penzance project in Berkeley County, and the Fundamental Data Ridgeline facility in Tucker County have raised concerns from residents about emissions, sound, water usage, school funding and other taxation issues.

Some states, such as Ohio, are pausing their tax breaks for data center projects, while other states, such as New York, are putting a moratorium on data center projects. Foster said that data center projects should be allowed to proceed, but it was right of people to question how much government was incentivizing such projects.

“My perspective is that we shouldn’t ban them, but we probably also shouldn’t be paying for them,” Foster said. “I think in general, there are perhaps some practical regulations to put in place. Like, they shouldn’t put extraordinary demand on the local municipalities for power or water supply. But once you’ve attended to that particular concern, it does seem that you probably want people building things in your community in general.”

Saul said bringing his podcast to Berkeley Springs was his way of “walking the walk” and fulfilling the mission of Tangle News, which is to look at the big topics of the day from the perspectives of the political left, right and center and provide perspectives.

“Bringing this to stage in a place like Berkeley Springs is about walking the walk on having the dialogue, having these conversations, and doing it in a way that’s actually civil and productive,” Saul said. “It is about planting our flag and saying we can … share a stage together without it being vitriolic and full of hate and anger.”

Tickets can be purchased at tickettailor.com/events/tanglenews/2210692